Buffing or brushing machines often utilize relatively long power driven arbors or shafts on which buff sections or wheels are mounted for rotation with the arbor or shaft. Spacers are sometimes interposed between the wheels. Spacers may be simple rings or worn buffing or brush wheels.
Buffing wheels may have a wide range of materials and can be used for aggressive material removal or just polishing and coloring. The materials may range from soft to coarse cloth, or abrasive fabric, or sand paper or sheets. The same is true of brush wheels and the materials used for the brush filaments.
In forming a buffing wheel, a clinch ring is sometimes employed which includes teeth which bite into the folded radially extending fabric, cloth, or paper at the fold. When the buff wheel is formed a core plate or hub is normally press-fit into clinch ring. The core plate normally includes a center hole or openings which fit on the drive arbor of the machine. A central opening may include notches or keyways designed to fit drive keys on the arbor. Brush wheels may be made in generally similar fashion but normally include an annular wire core in the clinch ring around which the radially extending filaments are folded. Examples of buff wheels made with clinch rings are seen in Atkins U.S. Pat. No. 3,438,080, or Pedrotte U.S. Pat. No. 4,504,999. Examples of wheel type brushes with such rings may be seen in U.S. Pat. No. 2,160,829 to Nielsen, and U.S. Pat. No.2,757,401 to Peterson.
Some buff wheels have the fabric or buffing or abrading material attached directly to the hub or core plate and do not use a separate clinch ring or channel. These types of wheels are shown for example in Churchill U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,724,937 and 2,687,602, and are sold under the well known trademark CHURCHILL by the JacksonLea unit of Jason Incorporated at Conover, N.C.
Prior efforts to form ganged sub-assemblies of buff wheels with or without spacers are shown in Schaffner U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,365,742 and 5,650,744. Both utilize straps or tabs which extend axially inside the clinch rings connecting buff sections under pressure. The straps or tabs are welded in place and a rigid or unyielding sub-assembly is formed. Since the sub-assemblies will not yield axially or further compress, the machine operator is limited to an arbitrary unyieldable axial dimension increment which when assembled on the shaft may not precisely fit the total axial length of the shaft. Nothing is more frustrating than to try to make something fit that will not fit. Without the proper fit one of the assemblies has to be removed and replaced by individual wheel segments or spacers. This of course adds to the machine downtime, cost, and requires more labor, and unnecessary wheel inventory. It would accordingly be desirable if the stack or sub-assembly of wheels would yield axially so that proper fit could be obtained simply by further compression or expansion. This of course is impossible with a rigid sub-assembly.